Planting out the Gunny Sack Garden

After what seemed like forever, the NZ Spinach was finally big enough to go out into the big wide world.   Just drop a few degrees – well halve the temperate and reduce the intensity of the sun and shorten the days and for some reason plants grow slower.  Much slower.  Winter gardening can be like watching paint dry.

I’d never tried NZ Spinach before and I’m not really sure why.  Maybe a misconstrued desire to have “proper” spinach, whatever that may be as it would seem spinach isn’t just spinach if you know what I mean.  The leaves of the kiwi stuff is a little fleshy, with a rough surface, but when you eat it, you know you are eating it as it gives a satisfying mouth feel, and the flavour lets you know you are eating something that is good for you with that ‘spinachy’ taste with a hint of sweetness.  I know this because I have munched upon several seedlings!

It was with a satisfying step I headed out to the garden knowing a lot of spinach was about to find a home in my garden.  The Gunny Sack Garden had been prepared ages ago, and the soil was nicely settled.  I would have loved to have planted it out weeks ago, but the plants were still too tender in their infancy.

The instructions suggested I’d be able to get at least 30 plants in the garden and my first reaction was “THIRTY?!” But when you looked at it with a sensible eye.  If you divided the sack into 4 imaginary sections then you are only looking at putting 7 or 8 in each quarter, it doesn’t seem so overwhelming.  Feeling confident in my mathematical abilities I marked out where the holes went and proceeded to cut them open with my sharp herb scissors.  Those scissors are so handy they have been used for all manner of things, but I can’t remember if I’ve ever used them for cutting herbs!  I like the simple design, not fancy springs or bits of plastic – just two bits bolted together.

I tried my best to be gentle with the fragile roots, but I was torn between making too big a hole and being nice.  By the end I was just stuffing them in as best I could.  I hope they bounce back well enough.  I also popped some Kale and Rocket in the top for good measures and stood back to admire my handiwork.  It looked fabulous, to me.  Out of curiosity I decided to count the spinach, and seemed to have planted 36.  That’s 9 in each sector – so much for my mathematics skills.

It is quite exciting to try new gardening techniques, just for the fun of it, however I have to remember why I have a Gunny Sack in my garden.  I was asked to grow it by the good people at Child Fund NZ to highlight the plight of mothers in Kenya.  Their only hope of a nutritious diet for their children is to be fortunate enough to have been gifted a garden such as this by kind and caring folk on the other side of the world.  People who have stepped out in faith to make a difference in the lives of others and purchase one of the garden kits.

I have found in my journey that gardeners are the nicest people who are always more than willing to share what they have, their seeds, their harvest and their knowledge.  What better way to share with others than with a garden.

You can read about setting up the Gunny Sack Garden  >HERE<

Come again soon – there is a panicked frenzy going on my the garden.

Sarah the Gardener  : o )